Early Afternoon Sunday Vermont Storm Update: Ice Working North, But Slowly. Impressively Snowy NW Vermont

Snow was piling up fast this morning around my
house in St Albans, Vermont, and the snowbanks
along the driveway were growing fast, too.

 Boy, the snow seemed pretty relentless here in St. Albans, Vermont this morning.  I haven't even gotten as much snow as a few places I've seen so far.  

But the 7.2 inches we've had through noon is pretty impressive, considering we have quite a bit of storm left to go before it's over.  

The National Weather Service office in South Burlington has picked up eight inches of new snow through 11 a.m. Williston reported 8.5 inches. Morrisville clocked in with nine inches. 

The sleet and freezing rain has been working north in Vermont as expected, but not quite as aggressively as I thought it  might.

Sleet had made it to between White River Junction and St. Johnsbury in eastern Vermont and in spotty fashion mixed with snow as far north as Addison County by late morning. 

 I think northern Vermont, especially along and east of the Green Mountains will still get some sleet, but it won't last too long up there, maybe two to four hours?  Sleet will probably be very brief if it happens at all in the Champlain Valley north of Burlington. 

As of 12:45 p.m. the snow in St. Albans looked like it was starting to have a wetter consistency, hinting at warm air aloft that could give us a period of sleet this afternoon. 

I'm still worried about the amount of freezing rain that might fall in southern Vermont.  Latest maps depict quite a few areas in northern Bennington County and parts of Rutland, Windsor and Windham county seeing a quarter inch of ice.

Small areas of northern Bennington County could see a half inch of ice, which would really start to bring down branches and power lines if that comes true. 

There was a bit of a lull in the precipitation on radar as of shortly passed noon.  Mixed precipitation in southern Vermont was mostly just falling lightly at that point. Snow was only lightly falling in central and northeast Vermont, too. 

It looks like the northwest tip of Vermont might miss out on that lull, so that' where I'm guessing some of the more impressive snow totals will show up. 

The lighter precipitation has allowed the downslope winds along the western slopes of the Green Mountain to strengthen. There was only a small smattering of power outages in southwest Vermont along the western slopes, so things haven't gotten too out of control just yet. 

Winds at the Vermont State Airport, a little southeast of Rutland City have been gusting to 43 mph for the past couple of hours. Bennington has gusted to 46 mph, and the compressional warming caused by those downslope winds brought Bennington's temperature up to 35 degrees as of noon.

Almost everyone else in Vermont is still in the 20s. 

Winds along the western slopes will still probably get a little stronger yet this afternoon. 

The push of colder air at all levels of the atmosphere will start to push into northwest Vermont late this afternoon and then quickly cross the state early this evening. That would shut off the sleet and freezing rain everywhere and turn things back to snow. 

I still think we might have a pretty impressive burst of heavy evening snow as this comes in.  Winds will increase everywhere, so the blowing and drifting will get atrocious. 

I don't recommend going out driving today, and especially not this evening, as some spots will have close to zero visibility in near blizzard conditions due to heavy snow and blowing snow. 

I'll have a more comprehensive update for Vermont late this afternoon or very early this evening.